


Friends Like These - A Summary

by iwillrunforever



Series: With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemies [2]
Category: DCU, Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M, i would recommend you check out the full fic., this is just a summary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27846710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillrunforever/pseuds/iwillrunforever
Summary: A summary of Friends Like These, a fic about Jerome Valeska, Harleen Quinzel, and how they met.
Relationships: Harleen Quinzel/Jerome Valeska
Series: With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028086





	Friends Like These - A Summary

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it would be good to have this, just in case anyone was interested in reading Who Needs Enemies but didn't want to read 63,000 words of fic.

Harleen Quinzel is the heir to the family business, the perfect daughter, the perfect student.

At least, during the day she is.

At night she becomes a shadow in the city streets, addicted to danger and crime, constantly chasing a bigger high.

After leaving Gotham five years ago, she has returned at seventeen. She quickly becomes friends with her classmate, the mysterious billionaire Bruce Wayne, and his sort-of-girlfriend, Selina Kyle. For a moment she’s living a relatively normal, boring life.

And then she meets Jerome Valeska in Arkham Asylum. Or reunites, as she met him at the circus when she was twelve – he was the reason the Quinzels left Gotham.

They are both intrigued by each other, but Harleen does her best to resist the temptation of the insane criminal.

Her plan falls apart when he attacks her school and kidnaps her, taking her to an abandoned building outside of the city. They fight and flirt, Harleen trying to escape and Jerome thwarting her every move; after a night of confessions on the rooftop, Harleen attacks Jerome, and he punishes her by carving a letter into her stomach – ‘J’.

Despite the hate she feels towards him, Harleen can’t control her mind when Jerome begins to feature in her dreams far more intimately than she wants. Jerome’s possessiveness only grows, but he acts rashly and brings her into the city to prove she’s still alive. After a stand-off with Penguin, Harleen manages to finally escape, though not before she is shot.

Eventually collapsing in the Narrows, she wakes up at a make-shift hospital run by Lee Thompkins. Thanking Lee for saving her, Harleen makes her way to the GCPD.

In her interview with Jim Gordon, she falls apart, angry that she was abandoned and conflicted about her feelings for Jerome. She hides this all from her parents and family who are waiting for her.

She returns home – a new prison. She and her mother fight over leaving Gotham, over therapy, and over school. Harleen refuses to back down: they will not leave, she will not go to therapy, and she will not stop going to school. She won’t let Jerome win.

The best thing to come from all this? Her parents gift her a puppy, a heart-warming moment in the chaos.

School doesn’t last long though; a group of boys provoke her and she attacks them, resulting in her expulsion. Her mother is understandably unhappy. But Harleen manages to make a deal – she’ll go to therapy and will repair her reputation as long as she can move out and start working as a nurse at Arkham. Against all odds, her mother agrees.

Therapy reveals far too many truths in Harleen’s mind – the reason she can’t stop thinking about Jerome and the reason he’s so obsessed with her. She ignores these, trying to relax and indulge in the Christmas season.

But Jerome persists, cornering her in the park on Christmas Eve, gifting her a dagger. She knows she should throw it away – she doesn’t.

New Years comes around and the Quinzel family are hosting a celebration for Gotham’s finest, including Bruce. At the stroke of midnight, Jerome appears once more and offers an ultimatum – come with him willingly or he will gas the rest of the guests and take her by force.

This time Harleen’s not backing down. Pretending to agree she attacks him, forcing the trigger for the gas away from him and throwing it to Bruce. The police arrive, letting the guests escape, but when Jerome begins to taunt her she sees red. Jim has to pull her off of him as he laughs through the blood.

Despite Jerome’s imprisonment in Arkham, she goes to work there anyway, with the agreement that she will never have to see him.

This agreement falls through quickly when she is forced to treat him for burns. Harleen tries to focus on her hatred and anger, but she can’t stop softer emotions from coming through. Something within her has attached to him, cares about him, and it’s still growing stronger.

They begin seeing each other regularly, under the guise of treatment, and the twisted bond between them grows. Jerome offers an outlet for Harleen’s anger, her frustrations, her darkest secrets.

On her birthday, all is seemingly normal, until Arkham is attacked and they are both taken. Trapped in a cell, waiting for death, Jerome becomes vulnerable for a brief moment, before their captors separate them. Harleen discovers that many of Gotham’s most wanted – Penguin, the Riddler, Barbara Kean, and more – have all been imprisoned here. They begin plotting on how to escape, armed with only Harleen’s dagger.

Jerome is returned and she is taken. The man in charge asks her to help him by publicly killing Jerome in a staged fight – she refuses, until he reveals photos and information on her family. Taken back to the cell, she tells the others to leave without her. But Jerome refuses to let her give up, formulating a plan to help her family escape.

On the run in the streets of Gotham together, it’s Harleen’s turn to be vulnerable. For once Jerome is gentle, but she hates herself for letting herself fall apart in front of him.

After her family gets away, they find themselves in a car chase, the two of them on a motorbike pursued by a fleet of men with guns. They almost escape, but as they get closer to Penguin’s mansion Harleen realises they’re out of fuel and they won’t make it.

So she throws them off the side of the road.

Somehow the pair survive, making it to Penguin’s while avoiding their hunters. Harleen is overwhelmed by the chaos of the night and hides herself away, her absence from the meeting seemingly unnoticed.

Later, Jerome corners her in the kitchen, trying to force her to admit her feelings. But she still can’t do it, storming off into the garden where she is taken again.

She wakes up tied to a chair, about to be used as bait for Jerome and tortured live on television. It doesn’t take long for an attack, distracting her torturer. Harleen uses the moment to escape her binds, taking a scalpel, slitting the throat of her captor, and using his gun to kill the guard. She flees the room, searching for Jerome and collapsing into his arms.

This time she’s at home, in bed, with Lee Thompkins caring for her. Lee is quickly replaced by Jerome; Harleen confesses to killing the two men, and everything she has been containing for the last six months spills out. Realising how important Jerome is, she makes her choice and kisses him.


End file.
